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Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

I miss hearing the drags from our house in Exeter on Sundays. And I miss those adds on WRKO (680 AM). And I was sorry to hear of the passing of Dale Dorman, who introduced me to so much great music on that Top 40 station when I was a kid. And speaking of radio... you can hear me today on Under the Radar with Callie Crossley, which airs on  6:00 to 7 p.m. on WGBH (89.7 FM). I'm on for maybe half the show with Susanna Jackson of Dig Boston, talking about a bunch of arts stuff including the city's new arts chief and the Factory Theatre refugees.

Two more shots to see 'The Flick'

Just got a promo email from Company One saying there are still tickets available - including $15 student rush tix - for the two final performances of the New England premiere of Annie Baker's "The Flick" at the Modern Theatre downtown, tonight and tomorrow. Baker's play follows the mostly reclining fortunes of three employees of a dying Worcester-area moviehouse, one of the last big screen venues around still using 35mm film. The digital era looms, but the play really foregrounds the fate of three of the theater's employees - twitchy semi-burnout Sam (Alex Pollock), nerdy new hire Avery (Peter Andersen) and lovely but equally troubled projectionist Rose (Brenna Fitzgerald). The audience joins Avery in learning the sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant truths about his coworkers and then himself. The Globe's Don Aucoin liked the play, and so did I (although just about everyone seems to agree that long first act could be trimmed). Extra props (no pun intended) to designer Cristina Todesco for the set (above, with Pollock and Andersen), which is pretty great, down to the grotty projection booth window and the broken ceiling tiles.

James Gandolfini

If you like "Mad Men" or "Breaking Bad" or "The Walking Dead" or "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "Game of Thrones" or "Justified" or any of the other cable series that make TV still worth watching, then you ought to tip your hat to James Gandolfini today. He changed TV as much as any actor since Bill Cosby in the 1980s or Carroll O'Connor and Mary Tyler Moore in the 1970s.

Sure, David Chase was the presiding genius behind "The Sopranos." But it was Gandolfini's performance as Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano that won over viewers almost immediately to this strange, hybrid thing, a cable drama series about a sad suburban dad who was also a killer. They say our favorite TV casts become our families in a way, because we spend all that time together in our living rooms. Somehow Gandolfini made Tony just as much a part of the American family as Archie Bunker and Mary Richards and Cliff  Huxtable. And in making "The Sopranos" a hit for HBO, he blazed the trail for all those other shows, smart and edgy and violent and profane, just about the time that business pressures turned broadcast network TV into a landscape of witless reality contests. Of course you ought to tip your hat to him anyway. He was a terrific actor, humanizing this violent character and making us see all his contradictions in his eyes.

To be honest, I've hardly seen his other performances. He didn't work as much as many actors. The huge fame that came with "The Sopranos" was not something he appeared to enjoy. For a big, scary-looking guy, he seemed shy. I met him only once, at a circuslike HBO party at some painfully hip Hollywood hotel in 2007 or -08. He was there to promote a documentary about disabled veterans. There was Champagne and shrimp on sticks and lots of leggy model types, not to mention dramatic bursts of flame from gas rings floating on the surface of the pool. Also on hand were plenty of reporters who would have been happy to ask him flattering questions in an ego-boosting poolside scrum. But he turned his back on all that, slipped into a chair at a table of disabled vets and spent the next hour or two tossing back shots with them, deep in conversation with a multiple amputee who'd fought in Iraq. Then he slipped away.

Appetite was a big part of Tony Soprano. For food, drink, sex, money, power, and, secretly, love. Gandolfini shared at least some of that with the character. He was a big man - sometimes very big - who often looked anxious or angry. Maybe that's the profile of a guy who dies of a massive heart attack, aged only 51. He leaves behind a second wife and their toddler, among other family. I hope he was having a good time in Rome before the screen went to black.

Speak now, and later

As noted below, I'll be joining Bill Steelman of Essex Heritage at the mic for First Friday at the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport on April 5. That's a member event (although you can join that night and still get in on the buffet and drinks). But everyone is invited when I'll be on a panel at the Newburyport Literary Festival on April 27. Ghlee Woodworth and I will talking about Newburyport walking trails, local history, the byway and so forth at 11 a.m. at the Newburyport Art Association. And best of all, it's free! And I'll be the speaker at the Lynn Museum's annual membership meeting in May. In each case I'll be selling and singing the Byway Guide for interested parties.

Big-screen Strangelove at the MFA, Kubrick style

As a juvenile film fanatic, I was given copies of "Truffaut/Hitchcock" and "Stanley Kubrick Directs" one Christmas or birthday in the early '70s, back in the days when you could see all their films at the Brattle or the Orson Welles or at your nearest college film series. DVDs and cable have pretty much put an end to those outlets, but "Psycho" and "Dr. Strangelove" remain perhaps disturbingly close to the top of my list of all-time favorites. And now the Museum of Fine Arts is offering a chance to take in Kubrick's complete filmography in order on the big screen in February.

Offerings include: "Fear and Desire," the little-seen 1953 war allegory in a print restored by the Library of Congress (Feb. 1, 2, 3 and 7); Kubrock's first masterpiece, the World War I drama of cowardice and heroism "Paths of Glory" in a print restored by UCLA (Feb. 7 and 9); and of course his 1964 peak, "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," a bit of Cold War insanity that's a shortgun wedding of "Fail Safe" and "Duck Soup," that's also one of Peter Sellers' greatest films (Feb. 14 and 16). And of course those great Kubrick couples - Hal & Dave, and Tom & Nicole - are also on the schedule.

Tickets are $11 (less for members, students, seniors, etc.) at www.mfa.org/film, 800-440-6975 or the MFA ticket desks. Click the web site to find out which theater each show is in and other info.

Photo: Kubrick and Sellers on the "Strangelove" set, © Sony/Columbia Pictures Industries Inc. / The Stanley Kubrick Archive

You do need a weatherman...

Hurricane Sandy has local forecasters getting on their foul-weather faces and rolling out their bold-faced fonts, although there's still no telling exactly which way the storm will go early next week. Normally I'm loathe to fall under the spell of publicists who try to tie their arts events to such things - storms, the Red Sox, whatever. (Isabella Stewart Gardner liked going to Fenway, we get it, now give it a rest.) But the New England Philharmonic opens its season this saturday with - wait for it - "Atmospherics." The 8 p.m. at Tsai Performance Center program will focus on composer in residence David Rakowski's fourth symphony - wait for it! - Scare Quotes. Our local forecasters are not involved, but each movement in the symphony use titles taken from The Weather Channel website: Waning Crescent, Current Conditions, Ice to Rain and finally, Double Shot. Each movement "quotes" musical themes from pieces by other composers, including Bach, Mahler and Oliver Nelson with his jazz standard "Stolen Moments." Tickets, $25, at www.nephilharmonic.org. On the (literally) bright side, the program also includes Thea Musgrave's "Rainbow."

For Breaking Bad fans, waiting is the hardest part

Many TV shows kick off a pop culture meme or two, and a brilliant few invade your dreams. "Breaking Bad" invaded reality a couple of weeks ago, as Alabama authorities put an alleged meth cook named Walter White on their most-wanted list. That the arrest of a real-life Walter seemed unsurprising was an interesting data point in understanding just how much this AMC drama about a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher turned badass meth kingpin has gotten under my skin. So it's going to be a bear waiting until next summer for the show's final eight episodes. (SPOILERS AHEAD!)

The 2012 finale on Sunday night ended with a classic "Breaking Bad" moment. Walter (the amazing Bryan Cranston) hosted a family party a few days after he told his wife he was out of the meth biz. The unspoken theme was a return to normalcy. But then Walter's DEA agent brother-in-law, Hank, sat down for a little bathroom reading and picked up a volume of Walt (!) Whitman. Inside he found a hand-written inscription that made his jaw drop to match his pants, linking Walter to a murdered meth chemist. I worried Hank was going to have a stroke right there on the can as he faced the absurd truth that he has subconsciously suspected for a long time: Suburban milquetoast Walter has a double life as the evil Heisenberg! Walt is Heisenberg!

DEA agent brother-in-law? Whitman? Toilet? Heisenberg? What? All this may sound like gibberish to the non-fan, but we are so far down the rabbit hole with this show that it's way too late to bring newcomers up to, ahem, speed. Suffice to say that the moment's ruthless plotting, painfully mundane setting, literary touches and wonderful acting (by Dean Norris as Hank) were all expressions of what makes this show great.

Score one for WGBH vs. WBUR

Executives of WGBH and Public Radio International say all the right things in this morning's Globe story. That PRI will remain independent after its acquisition by WGBH. That the deal won't affect PRI's distribution deal with WGBH's crosstown nemesis, WBUR. But c'mon. Despite the genteel face everyone likes to put on things in public broadcasting, this is a smart, hardball move by WGBH in its ongoing campaign to catch and overtake WBUR in local radio. One might almost say cutthroat, but public broadcasting people only use such words when talking about, you know, Somali pirates.

PRI distributes "This American Life" and other popular shows to stations including WBUR. And it also syndicates WBUR's "Here & Now." Despite all the nice talk abut how the WGBH deal isn't going to affect that, it's impossible to believe that 'GBH won't have an inside track to get national shows like "This American Life" the next time the contract comes up. And to get their own shows syndicated. They'll all deny it now, but just watch. And if you were running WBUR, would you want to entrust your own shows to a syndicator controlled by your crosstown rival?

They'll say this is all about strengthening WGBH's national profile and PRI's finances and, you know, better serving listeners. But I bet there were a few high-fives behind closed doors at 'GBH HQ when they sealed the deal. After the bad PR they earned with their recent jazz massacre, and the wide lead 'BUR has in local ratings, this is one round that goes to the challenger.

Jazz fans taking the fight to WGBH tonight

Jazz lovers of all stripes are invited to turn out at 1 Guest Street, Brighton, tonight at 8 for a swinging New Orleans-style jazz funeral, complete with live music. The address is the home of the WGBH broadcast empire (right), and the funeral is for jazz on WGBH-FM (89.7). More of a protest march, really. But swingin'. No word on who'll be carrying the coffin. Or maybe WGBH will come to its senses, and the box will be empty.

If you're reading this, odds are you already know that WGBH is cutting the majority of its jazz programming, shifting the long-running, Monday-through-Thursday "Eric in the Evening" program to weekends, cutting Steve Schwartz's Friday show altogether and - this part is still rumor - cutting the weeknight editions of the overnight syndicated "Jazz with Bob Parlocha" as well. News and talk, primarily reruns of WGBH shows, will replace the missing jazz hours, as the station continues its attempt to win the city's news-and-information audience from WBUR-FM.

The first two moves were announced as a "new focus on jazz," which sounds a lot like Mitt Romney telling us the dog loved it up there on top of the car for 500 miles.

Wear your dancing shoes.

The event was put together by an ad hoc group of jazz lovers in town. Facebook pages for Save Eric In the Evening; Save Jazz on WGBH; and tonight's event.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Mulling the jazz downgrade on WGBH

You've probably heard by now that WGBH (89.7 FM) has pulled the carpet from under weeknight jazz listeners, with plans to move Eric Jackson's venerable "Eric in the Evening" jazz show to the weekends, cutting it from 16 hours a week to 9, and eliminating Steve Schwartz's Friday night show altogether. Jackson has been on the air in more or less the same slot for 30 years. Jazz fans were up in arms, storming the barricades via a Facebook page. We'll see how that works.

The best part was that WGBH had the Orwellian brass to call this "a new focus on jazz." Call the BFD! Pants on fire!

Lots of folks noted that jazz fans can get whatever they want from the Internet, and Dan Kennedy perhaps shot from the hip with the observation, "I suspect not many people listen to terrestrial jazz radio in the age of Pandora." I suspect that many Internet jazz listeners are in fact dialing up terrestrial stations online - WGBH when Eric's on, as well as the wonderful WWOZ from New Orleans or KKJZ from Long Beach. (As I type these words, Ella Fitzgerald is scatting on K-Jazz, Dan; I think they knew I was going to mention you.) But yes, the Internet has had its usual impact here. And Jackson is 20th in his broadcast time slot.

That's what it's about, ratings and dollars. WGBH decided some time ago that it must battle WBUR for the large audience that tunes in for "Morning Edition," "All Things Considered," "Marketplace" and other "news and information" programming, be it local or national. And that means anything that doesn't fit those plans must be shunted to the sidelines - hence the move of WGBH's classical programming to WCRB (99.5 FM) a couple of years ago. Probably the classical listeners had a Facebook insurrection too, but it doesn't appear to have made much of a dent.

You might be one of those naive old-timers who remembers that public broadcasting was created to provide programming that wasn't supported by the marketplace. About the best spin you could put on the present reality is that fine folks at 'GBH and 'BUR have looked at the degraded news operations of the networks and the cable screamers and decided that their most important, their sole mission, should be to provide a news and information alternative.

That both stations are providing pretty much the (oxymoron alert!) same alternative, well... tough. They're afraid for their jobs like everyone else in the media these days, and if big ratings is what they need to keep them...

But I can't see myself driving along the Charles late some night, looking at the city lights, and wanting to tune in reruns of a midday issues talk show, not matter who's doing the talking.